


i've never fallen (from quite this high)

by pentaghastly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, arya does not like support groups and complains constantly, the jonsa is only briefly mentioned and jon/the starks are not related, until the hot guy is sitting next to her #nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 05:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18492325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: Arya Stark spends a significant amount of her free time thinking about death, and all the different ways that a person can die.Dying in car crashes.Heart attacks.Embolisms caused by annoying older brothers.(She doesn't see Gendry Waters coming. By the time that she does, it's far too late.)





	i've never fallen (from quite this high)

**Author's Note:**

> this is pure fluff babey!!!!!!
> 
> jon/sansa are not related and only briefly mentioned in this fic - I needed a good tie-in for Jon's presence, and this felt like that would be it.
> 
> there's no beta here so pls god forgive me for my typo sins
> 
> (commets/kudos mean the world)

i.

Arya Stark spends a significant amount of her free time thinking about death, and all the different ways that a person can die.

Dying in car crashes.

Heart attacks.

Embolisms caused by annoying older brothers.

(In fairness, that last one might be specific to herself. The thing is – the thing is that Robb is really, _really_ annoying.)

It’s not an _obsession_ , and she’s not one of the weird goth kids who sits under the bleachers writing poetry and complaining about the futility of life or whatever. It’s just something she thinks about, because sometimes it’s better to think about unpleasant things and prepare for them than it is to live your life in ignorance and be taken by surprise.

She hadn’t thought about death before it came for her father. That, Arya thinks, had been her first mistake.

It’s the third time this month that she’s been called to the counsellor’s office for writing about ‘ _concerning subject matter_ ’ in English class, and at this point Arya is used to it. She doesn’t actually mind the time that she spends with Tyrion Lannister – God knows he’s got enough money, so she’s pretty sure that he does the job because he actually cares. She just thinks that it’s disappointing that his concern is so misguided, and wishes she could smack him upside the head with the fancy framed degree on his wall as a way of helping him see that. 

“I tried to vouch for you, Miss. Stark. I really did.” 

“Somehow I struggle to believe that.”

He’s looking at her with something akin to fondness, but Arya doesn’t trust Adults of Authority. Usually, for the most part, that mistrust is reciprocated twofold. 

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s out of either of our hands now.” She doesn’t understand what it is that he’s saying to her, and it must be written all across her face because suddenly he’s leaning forward, hands clasped on the desk in front of him. The energy has shifted; their meeting is starting to feel _serious_. “Your mother is worried about you.”

“Have you met my mother? She worries about everything.” 

“She wants you to attend a support group.” Tyrion pauses, as if allowing his words to settle in, and suddenly Arya understands what this means: the end of her life as she knows it. “A weekly meeting for children like yourself who have –”

“Who have what? More than two brain cells?”

“Who have recently experienced loss.”

There’s no children like herself, she thinks. There’s just herself, and the suggestion that there are other people in their school who will understand what she’s going through – which is nothing, so what she’s _metaphorically_ going through – is a slap in the face.

“ _Bullshit_. This is bullshit!” 

“I don’t think that’s the language you’re meant to use in front of teachers, Miss. Stark.” 

“This is not a John Green novel,” she tells him, because at the moment pointing out the obvious feels necessary. Futile, but necessary. “Support group is not a meet-cute, and I do not need therapy just because I wrote a story about dying. Did Sylvia Plath need therapy?”

“Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven. I think therapy might have been a good idea.” 

_Shit_. He’s right about that, although Arya won’t give him the benefit of letting him know.

The thing is – the thing is that she _can’t_ go to a support group, because the thought of doing so makes her want to vomit. She doesn’t like talking about her feelings with her family, and the thought of doing so with a room full of her peers seems almost impossible to comprehend. How could she make it through a weekly ritual of pitying faces and people lamenting their first-world problems?

“This is an injustice. This is a suppression of my artistic freedom.” There’s something about that in the Constitution, she’s sure, something that calls it a human rights violation and will get her out of this mess. “Have you ever been sued, Lannister? Because I swear to fuck, I’ll –” 

“ _Language_ , Miss. Stark!” 

He’s laughing at her.

Tyrion Lannister is laughing at her, and scolding her for swearing, and Arya knows exactly what this is: 

It’s the beginning of the fucking end.

 

ii.

Of course Gendry is here.

Just her luck, that.

Arya is panic-texting Sansa ( _This is the end of the fucking world,_ she types, and her sister’s promise that she’ll be waiting at home with cheap vodka coolers stolen from their mom’s fridge almost makes the whole experience worthwhile) when she notices him, just moments before he sits down beside her.

He barely glances at her, and Arya doesn’t expect anything less on account of the fact that her and Gendry have never actually spoken. She just knows who he is because _everyone_ knows who he is, the bastard son of their recently-deceased mayor whose identity becoming public made headlines last spring. She feels terrible for him, she really does, but Arya had known who he was long before that.

She’d known who he was because he’s on the wrestling team and his biceps are fucking ridiculous so yeah, he’d been pretty hard not to notice.

“First meeting?” he asks her, and this is a rare moment where she _really_ wishes Sansa were there to intervene. Sansa would know what to say.

But she’s not Sansa, and right now she thinks she’s fucked.

“And last, hopefully.” Arya’s observant, always has been, and there’s certain things she’s observing about Gendry right now that are taking her by surprise – the way his gaze is landing anywhere but her own, the way he’s wringing his hands in his lap, the light pink that’s risen across his cheeks. It seems as though he’s just as nervous as she is. “It’s bullshit. The whole thing is bullshit.”

“Tell me about it.” The passion in his voice surprises her, but not in an unpleasant way. “I barely knew my dad, and now I have to go to grief counselling for his death?”

The way that he throws his hands in the air serves to accentuate his point, although Arya has to fight not to laugh – she understands his anger, of course. It’s just a little bit funny to see a seventeen-year-old star wrestler acting as dramatic as her sister usually does. 

“Sorry. Fuck, I didn’t mean that. These things actually do help.” It surprises her, this change of tone, but Gendry is continuing before she can interject. “They’re really not awful. It just makes it easier to spill all your shit in front of a group of strangers if you complain about having to be there before you do it.” 

The point’s not terrible. She can’t pretend to get it, but it’s not a horrible point that he’s trying to make. One thing that Arya _does_ get, however, is that he’s waiting for her to say something, and she doesn’t want to make the moment any more awkward for either of them by staying completely silent. God knows that’s the last thing that they need. 

“I’m here because I wrote a story about cutting off a woman’s face and wearing it.” 

Gendry pauses, if only for a second. “That’s a bit twisted, isn’t it?

“A bit, yeah.” 

“Twisted, but cool.” 

No one has ever told her that her stories are cool before. No one’s taken the time, but she looks at Gendry Waters and thinks that he might actually believe it. Not because he has an honest face, but because he looks like the sort of person who can’t lie for shit. 

“You’re really good,” she tells him, mostly because she doesn’t know what else to say. “At wrestling. I mean, you’re not complete shit, and for our school that’s kind of a fucking miracle.”

He grins, and Arya can tell she’s said the right thing. “You’ve been to one of my matches?”

“Are you kidding? Watching you pound Harding’s face into the mat was the highlight of my year.” Sansa’s ex-boyfriend had been a complete prick, and Gendry had handled him like no one else could have. That’d been the first time she’d noticed him – after that she hadn’t been able to stop. “I’ve got at least a dozen photos of that match saved to my phone.”

He’s grinning – properly grinning, and suddenly Arya realizes that she might have revealed more than she meant to. She’d made herself look like a _fan_ , and now there’s no going back.

Or there could be if she could only take a second to explain herself, but Gendry was talking before she got a chance.

“I’ve been to a few of your fencing matches,” he said, blue eyes shining something wonderful. “You’re good. _Really_ fucking good, actually. Been meaning to tell you for a while, but I wasn’t sure the Lady Stark would deign to converse with a peasant like me.” 

She scrunches her nose up slightly in distaste, more than a bit offended. Yes, her family has money and titles, but she’s not _Sansa_ for God’s sake.

(Never mind the fact that he’s been to her matches, and that he remembers her. That’s a thought to obsess over at another time, preferably one where Gendry is absolutely nowhere near her.) 

“I’m not a lady,” she says, mostly because she can’t think of anything else. 

“Of course not. Daughter of one of the most influential families in the country, but not a lady.”

“Do you want to get fucked after this?” 

There’s a flicker of confusion on his face, but it only lasts a second. A second, then he’s smiling at her and it’s something bright – something beautiful.

And the thing is that Arya doesn’t even really know why she asked him to join her, except for the fact that Gendry seems like the least awful person that she could possibly meet in a room like that. There should be something good that comes out of this whole awful situation, because she’s suffered long enough and she deserves a _little_ bit of a reward. Not to mention that getting drunk would probably get him to stop talking about her rich parents and their rich lifestyle, and that’s really the greatest blessing that Arya could ask for at the moment.

There’s all of that, and then there’s the fact that Gendry’s taken off his hoodie and he’s wearing an almost obscenely tight t-shirt, and the logical part of her mind has decided to take a little bit of a vacation. Honestly, she’s thankful for it. Sansa is always telling her that she should do more things for herself, and now she is.

Robb would be furious, but Robb can suck it.

“Sounds brilliant,” Gendry says, and then pauses for a moment before continuing, “M’lady.” 

She smacks his shoulder with a strength she typically only reserves for Robb.

(He deserves it, she’s sure. No one makes Arya Stark blush and gets away with it.)

 

iii.

Overall, the support group isn’t awful.

They talk about things, things that make Arya a little bit uncomfortable at first until she realizes that a lot of people in their school have been through a lot of shit.

Jeyne Poole had been abused by a boyfriend in ways that Arya can only imagine – and frankly, ways that she doesn’t want to. Margaery Tyrell was coping with the loss of her grandmother, a woman who had practically raised her, and the pain in her normally light-hearted tone was enough to make Arya at least a little bit emotional. Jon Snow had an absent mother and was abandoned by his father, a story that Arya knows all too well by now, but seeing him actually talk about it…that’s something different.

(He talks about a girl that’s helping him heal, and Arya doesn’t miss the way he flushes pretty when she grins in his direction. It’s almost pathetic, she thinks, how unsubtle he and Sansa are being with their whole affair.

Almost, but she’s happy enough for them that she lets it slide.)

Then there’s Gendry. There’s Gendry, who had been abandoned by his father and then made into the header of a tabloid magazine. Gendry, who’d encountered more pain and humiliation than she’d thought possible. She knows he doesn’t want her pity, but she can’t help it; he’s angry, that’s what he says, and Arya can only imagine what it’s like to feel anger like that. 

“My dad was a prick,” Gendry says, and there’s a conviction in his voice when he says it that shocks her. “He was a prick, but he was still my dad. And it sucks, you know? Because he didn’t want me. Even a fucking asshole didn’t think I was worth having.” 

Tyrion Lannister doesn’t scold him for his language.

She’s happy for it.

And before she knows what’s happening she’s resting a gentle hand on his knee, the most comforting gesture she’s given anyone since…ever, really, and Jon is looking at her like she’s lost her fucking mind but it’s okay, Arya thinks, because Gendry is smiling, and that’s kind of all that matters to her at the moment.

So the session isn’t complete bullshit, and maybe she talks a little bit about her feelings.

Maybe.

(She talks about how she misses her dad.

She talks about how thinking about dying helps her deal with the fact that they’re _all_ dying, albeit slowly, and how she doesn’t want to lose another person from her life without being prepared for it. She doesn’t want anyone to go away if she’s not ready for the fact that they’re all going to go, eventually, and that that’s okay.

Kind of.

Arya doesn’t talk about it in that many words. She’s never been good at speaking – that’s Sansa’s job. But she says it in as many words as she can manage, and she thinks that the people around her are at least trying to understand.) 

So the group isn’t awful.

Especially because Jon ends up picking up alcohol for them in the end, after she threatens him with knowledge about Sansa; the concept of having to face Robb Stark’s wrath is a lot more terrifying than potentially getting arrested for buying alcohol for minors.

She’s got Gendry, she’s got beer, and she’s got a promise from Sansa that her absence will be covered (again, thanks to a little bit of blackmail regarding secret boyfriends and all that). There isn’t really anything else that she could ask for, and she’s a little bit stunned that all of this came from a group therapy session that she really hadn’t wanted to attend.

Maybe she’ll thank Tyrion, eventually.

It’s unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

 

iv.

“I think you might be a bit insane,” Gendry says, and Arya places a hand to her heart.

“You _think_? You’ve been with me for hours – you really should know by now.”

Gendry laughs, sipping his beer as he does so. They’re sitting on the hood of his car, looking out at the sunset, and Arya thinks that it would be horribly cheesy if she were anyone other than herself. The thing is, though, that she _is_ herself and thus it’s only as cheesy as she makes it, and she refuses to make it so.

Circular logic, that, but she’s sure that she can make it work.

“You’re telling me that you spilled a bottle of red wine on Tywin Lannister. On _purpose_.”

“He was being a prick!”

“He’s a _Lannister_ ,” Gendry points out, and she has to admit that he’s got here there. “They’re always pricks.”

Arya knows that. She knows, because she’d seen the bruises on Sansa’s face and the way that Cersei had tried to dismiss them. She’d seen her sister cry in the corner of her room, the way that she’d flinched from anyone’s touch, and almost positive that Gendry doesn’t understand the half of it. She’d spilled wine on Tywin Lannister as a small, quiet act of rebellion – but God knows that she’d do a heall of a lot more if she could.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she says, because saying it doesn’t feel entirely like a lie. “And at this time, right here and now, I’m still pretty sure that it was a good idea. One of the best I’ve ever had.”

“Did you get fired?”

“Big time.”

He throws his head back in laughter, and Arya thinks that this is how she likes Gendry the best: laughing. She hasn’t known him for long, but a few hours is enough to tell her that this is the most beautiful she’ll ever see him.

People always look prettier when they’re happy. Arya doesn’t think much about looks – that’s Sansa’s job – but she’s not surprised to learn that Gendry is no exception.

“That’s brilliant,” he says, grinning the whole time. “You’re brilliant.”

It’s perfect.

And then he has to go and ruin it.

“I was sorry to hear about your dad,” he says, and she thinks, _idiot_. Another stupid boy, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. “I always really admired him.”

“Everyone admired him,” Arya says, because it’s true. “And then he died.”

“We all die, eventually.” He’s echoing her words from the session, and Arya wishes that it pissed her off more than it does – she wishes that it made her angry, because being angry is a lot easier to deal with than whatever it is that she’s dealing with right now. “I’m just sorry that his time came so soon. I wish I could have met him.”

What it is that she’s dealing with right now…it’s _fondness_.

And it’s pissing her off.

“You really shouldn’t be seducing a girl after she’s just poured her heart out talking about her dad in a group therapy session.” She scoffs, taking a sip to hide the discomfort written across her face. “Think that goes against patient confidentiality or whatever.”

“You’re not my patient, Arya. And I’m not telling anyone else, just talking to you.”

“Still. Not fucking cool, Waters.”

“Right then.”

They’re silent for a moment, a moment where Arya taps her beer can impatiently and Gendry turns his head up to look at the sky – there’s no stars out yet so she’s not certain what it is that he’s looking for, but she’s sure that it’s something beautiful. She hopes that whatever it is, he finds it.

And maybe she shouldn’t be mad that he’s talking about her father, she thinks, because she’d just spend a solid twenty minutes talking about him all on her own. Maybe she should be grateful that he’d listened to her, that he’d placed a hand on her shoulder when she’d talked about the day that she learned that he died and the way that he’d rubbed her neck slightly when she mentioned his funeral.

Maybe she should be flattered that he’s here, talking and drinking with her, instead of being…literally anywhere else. He’d said her stories were cool and he’d paid attention to the way that she was feeling and he’d been to her fencing matches, for fuck’s sake, and under the glow of the moonlight his biceps are only looking more accentuated than they had before. Maybe that shouldn’t be the point that wins her over, but let it never be said that Arya Stark didn’t _occasionally_ fall prey to her own weaknesses.

So maybe she’s a little bit thankful that Gendry is there, and she’s thankful for someone who can talk about her father without starting to cry,

 _Maybe_.

She doesn’t say that, though.

Instead she says, “My dad would have really liked you,” and tries not to flush when his face lights up with joy.

“You think so?”

“I know he would. You're everything he would have wanted a son to be, with the added benefit of an aptitude for his favourite sport,” she says, bumping her shoulder gently into his own and trying desperately to keep her emotional in check. It’s much harder than she’d ever imagined it would be. “He was a big wrestling fan. I think he’d been to a few of your matches with me, honestly.” 

Gendry’s face falls a little bit, and she pretends not to notice.

For his sake, not hers.

“I’m glad he would have liked my wrestling,” he says, and Arya clinks her beer can against his in a mock toast.

“He would have loved it,” she amends, and that’s the end of that.

 

v.

(Except, of course, nothing is ever the end of anything.

You’d think she would have learned that by now.)

 

vi.

After that, she and Gendry are inseparable.

It’s weird, because the only people she’d ever willingly spend time with at Westrosi High are her siblings, and the only reason it hadn’t driven her into insanity is because they’re family, and family sticks together or whatever cheesy adage her mother felt like spewing at them that week.

Sansa and her talk about their hopes and dreams and everything in between. She talks to Robb about sports; Bran helps her with her studies and she helps Rickon with his. Jon, though not part of their family by any sort of blood relation, helps her practice her fencing, and Arya pretends not to notice when he and Sansa make moon-eyes at each other from across the room. Everything between them lines up perfectly, because they’re a pack, and because the pack is always stronger together.

She’s not sure if this means that Gendry is part of her pack. All that Arya knows is that she can’t really imagine a part of her life where Gendry isn’t texting her at any given moment to bitch about some aspect of his day.

They talk about everything.

They talk about _nothing_ , and that’s possibly the best part.

Arya sends him the story about the girl who cuts off the face and he actually likes it – she knows he does, because she can tell when Gendry is lying and the absolute joy in his impassioned, six-text response doesn’t hold even a semblance of falsehood.

 _How the fuck are you my best friend?_ she asks, not expecting a serious response.

 _It’s fate, Lady Stark,_ he replies, and she thinks that she’s well and truly fucked.

In a matter of weeks, Gendry somehow makes himself part of their family. It’s Arya’s worst nightmare.

He smiles at her from across the circle of their support group, and she thinks it’s the loveliest thing that she’s ever seen.

(God, he’s got her sounding like Sansa.

She hates him for it.

At least a little.)

 

vii.

After six weeks of support group, someone knocks at her door.

Six _torturous_ weeks of support group. Six weeks of trying to act as though she doesn’t nearly have a heart attack every time Gendry looks at her – and the thing is that he looks at her a lot, because he’s always sitting next to her and always trying to comfort her when she gets too emotional, and it’s honestly very overwhelming. 

She’s thankful for him, she really is. Arya just wishes that he understood that when you have arms like a fucking lumberjack and a face like a GQ model you can’t just be a random _angel_ to young girls who are susceptible to your charms, because they will fall in love and then spend the rest of their lives resenting you for ruining their future. 

Not that that’s what happened to her. Not even in the slightest.

(Or maybe it is, at least a little bit, but you’ll never hear her admit as much out loud.)

So it’s been six weeks, and then Sansa is calling her to the door at eleven in the morning on a Saturday because apparently she has a visitor. That in itself is very ominous, because no one ever comes to visit Arya without some ulterior motive – especially not before noon on a weekend. Not if they want to keep their head, anyways.

Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised to see Gendry there. Or she _definitely_ sbhouldn’t be, but she’s too tired to not let her emotions get the better of her.

“I don’t remember inviting you over,” she says, because she can’t think of saying anything else.

“You didn’t.”

“Obviously.”

He snorts, and the sound should not be attractive but it’s _Gendry_ and everything he does is attractive, so Arya figures she only has herself to be angry with no matter how much she hates to admit it. The cocky bastard. 

“I think you’re insane.”

“Flattering.” She crosses her arms, leaning against the doorframe – the casual pose helps her feel more casual than she actually is. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“You are insane,” Gendry continues, and the nervous energy that’s radiating off of him is impossible to ignore. It’s almost disconcerting, and Arya wants to ask him if he’s alright but he’s talking too fast for her to get a moment to do so. “Probably the most insane person that I’ve ever met. You wrote a story about a girl cutting off another girl’s face and handed it in as an assignment, and I mean, who does that? Who has the balls to do something like that?”

“Very few people.” Practically no one, and Arya is proud of it. “Is there a point to this?”

There must be, or he wouldn’t be there.

There must be, or Sansa would be standing in the living room just a handful of feet behind them, smirking to herself. Arya doesn’t need to turn around and check to know that her sister is there. She knows her well enough by now.

“There’s a point,” Gendry snaps, but there’s no real anger behind his tone. “And the point is that I’m trying to ask you on a date, but if you keep interrupting me I’ll probably never get around to it.” 

_Oh._

_Oh, shit._

“That’s…definitely a point,” Arya says, and she thinks it might be the single worst response anyone has ever had to anything, ever. “A strange point, but a point none the less.”

He’s trying not to laugh. He’s trying, and failing, and Arya thinks that she might love him for the way he’s barely able to suppress his giggles into the crook of his elbow. She thinks she loves him for the way that he looks at her, exasperated and fond and everything in-between. It’s the way that her sister had always talked about how knights should look at their ladies: with undying affection, and while Arya doesn’t consider herself to be at all romantic she does have to admit that Gendry is a little bit like something out of a story book.

Good god, she could _never_ tell him that. His ego is already inflated enough as it is.

“Is it a good point?” he asks, and the question is enough to snap her out of her existential musing.

“Is what a good point?”

“Me asking you on a date.” He sounds exhausted, like he’s just run a fifty kilometer marathon, and Arya can’t help but feel at least the slightest bit of pity. “You said it was a _point_ , which isn’t exactly the most glowing of reviews.” 

She considers torturing him for a little bit longer. Arya considers it, but then she thinks that she likes Gendry just enough that the thought of making him suffer isn’t entirely appealing, Or it is, but not as appealing as the thought of kissing him, and the two kind of counteract one another. 

Her father would be proud of her. Ned Stark would take one look at the man in their doorway, the illegitimate son of his best friend, and realize that this is someone that his daughter could love. He would be proud of the fact, and frankly Arya is proud of the fact that she’d managed to find someone who fit her dead dad’s standards exactly so.

“It’s a good point,” she says, trying not to flush when he grins. “As far as points go, it’s not awful.”

Gendry takes a step forward – only a step, but it feels as though he’s just crossed a chasm. “And if I kissed you right now.? What kind of point would that be?”

Arya is sure they both hear Sansa squeal in the background.

Neither of them acknowledge it.

“A very good one,” she says, but she barely has time to finish her sentence.

She’s still talking, but she barely has time to stop before the words are captured by Gendry’s mouth, and before the world is taken over by the feel of his lips against hers, his hands running through her hair, the sigh of relief he breathes against her skin – the one that says that this moment is the one that he’s been waiting for, and that there’s no going back from here.

“I’ve been waiting a lifetime for you,” Gendry says, and for whatever reason Arya believes him.

She believes that he wants her, and not just because his tongue is pressing its way into her mouth.

She believes that he wants her because she believes Gendry, in everything he does and everything he says. She believes Gendry because it’s only been a handful of weeks but she knows him, and she doesn’t quite love him yet but she’s sure that she could, and isn’t that half the battle?

Arya believes Gendry because she’s always struggled to believe anyone else, but Gendry feels like something different. Gendry _is_ something different.

“You’ve got me now,” she says, and the Gods surely know that she means it. “So all that’s left is for you to tell me what you’re planning on doing with me.”

(The sound of an iPhone camera rings out in the background.

They both pretend not to notice it, and it only makes Arya adore him more.)

“Everything,” Gendry says, and he smiles against her lips. “We’re going to do everything.” 

 

vii.

Arya Stark spends a significant amount of her free time thinking about love.

It’s disgusting.

It’s _absolutely_ and completely unlike her in every single way.

(Gendry kisses all of her pessimistic complaints away, and it only makes her love him more.)


End file.
